Narrow Tea Party Loss in Mississippi Emboldens Its Senate Bid in Tennessee

Joe Carr, second from left, at a fund-raiser in Lascassas, Tenn., is one of six Republicans challenging Senator Lamar Alexander.Credit
Nathan Morgan for The New York Times

LASCASSAS, Tenn. — As Senator Thad Cochran eked out a victory over a conservative insurgent on Tuesday in Mississippi, Tea Party members here were making a bold — even defiant — proclamation: They will win the Senate seat in Tennessee.

The activists hope a little-known state representative, Joe Carr, a self-described underdog who has attacked efforts to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws, can oust the Republican incumbent, Lamar Alexander, 73, the former governor and two-time presidential candidate who began working on Capitol Hill in the late 1960s.

“What’s next on the calendar? Joe Carr,” Mr. Carr declared Tuesday, as a country band played for hundreds of supporters at his annual “T-bones and Politics” fund-raiser on a farm in this rural community southeast of Nashville. “Tomorrow begins the 45-day push for a constitutional conservative Tennessee.”

Given that Chris McDaniel, Mr. Cochran’s Tea Party challenger, lost Tuesday, such optimism might seem out of place. But Tea Party conservatives here and in Washington say that, if anything, the close call in Mississippi — and what appeared to be Mr. Cochran’s reliance on Democrats to win his runoff race — has only emboldened them.

“I’m crushed that we lost, however, I also know we moved the ball further,” said Adam Brandon, executive vice president of FreedomWorks, which organized thousands of activists on Mr. McDaniel’s behalf in Mississippi. He said his group was “very closely monitoring” Senate races in Kansas and here in Tennessee, “based on feedback from our activists.”

But despite the activists’ enthusiasm, Tuesday night’s result in Mississippi made clear that insurgent campaigns do not work everywhere, and Republican incumbents are becoming more wily and resourceful in rebuffing them.

Roughly two-thirds of the way into the primary season, some clear patterns have emerged in determining which Republicans withstand tough Tea Party challenges and which fall victim to them.

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Mr. Alexander, aware of being vulnerable to a challenge from the right, began preparing for his re-election bid early.Credit
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Some key factors make Republican incumbents vulnerable: appearing captive to Washington and distant from constituents back home, as the House majority leader, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, did; a campaign apparatus that is rusty and slow to recognize a primary threat; and a fired-up conservative base, coupled with a Tea Party candidate who is credible enough to attract money from outside groups or attention from conservative news media.

Not living in one’s home state can be perilous, too, as one Republican elder in the Senate, Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, discovered after a loss in 2012. In Kansas, Senator Pat Roberts, who has been in Congress since 1981, is now said to have a “Lugar problem” because he and his wife established their home in Virginia. But fortunately for Mr. Roberts, his opponent, Milton Wolf, a radiologist, has troubles of his own; Mr. Wolf once posted graphic X-rays of gunshot victims on Facebook and joked about it.

In many ways, Mr. Alexander’s approach, Republican strategists say, is a model for how incumbents should prepare to rebuff a challenger. With his penchant for deal-making with Democrats, a voting record that infuriates Republican purists and a long history in Washington, Mr. Alexander knew he would be vulnerable.

So, unlike Mr. Cochran, Mr. Alexander started laying the groundwork for his re-election early. In January 2012, he quit his Republican leadership post, saying it would “liberate” him to work on issues he cared about. But it also freed him to spend more time at home in Tennessee. Aides hope this will help him avoid the impression, which plagued Mr. Cantor, that he is too entrenched in Washington.

That December, Mr. Alexander said in an interview this week, he set out to lock up the support of “every credible candidate who might run against me in a primary” by winning endorsements, including those of the state’s top Republican elected officials and all 13 former party chairmen. “And if the race gets tight,” he vowed, “I’ll go dig up the dead ones and get them on my letterhead, too.”

When the Senate Conservatives Fund, a central backer of Tea Party candidacies, spent $45,000 last year on radio ads attacking Mr. Alexander for refusing to defund President Obama’s health care law, Mr. Alexander responded with a $250,000 ad buy of his own — on television — that showed him in a verbal sparring match with Mr. Obama over the law.

Despite those efforts, Tea Party groups in Tennessee met about a year ago and coalesced around Mr. Carr, 56, a legislator, businessman and family farmer from here in Lascassas, in one of the heavily Republican “collar counties” that ring Nashville.

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The Eisenhauer Band from Nashville played at the Joe Carr fundraising event in Lascassas.Credit
Nathan Morgan for The New York Times

Not long afterward, Ben Cunningham, president of the Nashville Tea Party, said he received a phone call from Mr. Alexander’s chief of staff. “He said, ‘Lamar wants to meet with you,’ ” Mr. Cunningham recalled.

In the months since, Mr. Carr — one of six primary challengers to Mr. Alexander — has had trouble gaining traction. A poll last month by Vanderbilt University found that 64 percent of Republican primary voters have a favorable view of Mr. Alexander. Just 20 percent viewed Mr. Carr favorably; 55 percent had never heard of him.

After the Cantor defeat this month, Mr. Carr experienced a burst of Tea Party enthusiasm. Laura Ingraham, the radio host who helped raise the profile of David Brat, the little-known economics professor who beat Mr. Cantor, invited Mr. Carr as a guest.

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More than 100 people flocked to his website, Mr. Carr said, and he raised “tens of thousands” in unsolicited donations. “It was like a B12 shot,” he said. He is hoping for endorsements from Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum, two Tea Party stars who are scheduled to appear at a rally near Knoxville on Thursday night.

At Tuesday night’s “T-bones and Politics” fund-raiser here, where the parking lot attendants wore red “Beat Lamar” T-shirts, the anger toward Mr. Alexander was palpable — though people here conceded that Mr. Carr had an uphill battle. The primary is Aug. 7.

Mr. Alexander, for his part, is paying little attention to Mr. Carr. In the interview, he avoided mentioning his opponent’s name — perhaps wanting to avoid the fate of Mr. Cantor, who inadvertently increased Mr. Brat’s name recognition by running attack ads against him.

Mr. Carr says that is fine with him.

“It’s perfect,” he said. “We want him to ignore us all the way to Aug. 7.”

Correction: July 2, 2014

Because of an editing error, an article on Thursday about the Tea Party’s efforts in Tennessee to defeat Senator Lamar Alexander in the Republican primary referred incorrectly to Lascassas, the home of Joe Carr, one of Mr. Alexander’s opponents. Lascassas is an unincorporated community in Rutherford County; it is not a county itself.

A version of this article appears in print on June 26, 2014, on Page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Narrow Tea Party Loss in Mississippi Emboldens Its Senate Bid in Tennessee. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe